Iraq: Who's on Trial?

tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19789097.post-1164210345430529462006-11-22T09:41:00.000-05:002006-11-22T11:25:15.843-05:00Iraq: Who's on Trial?A recent <a style="font-family: times new roman;" href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/shared/bsp/hi/pdfs/20_11_06hrwiraqreport.pdf">Human Rights Watch</a> (HRW) report condemning Saddam Hussein's Trial for being unjust and unfair has been <a style="font-family: times new roman;" href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/6163938.stm">making headlines</a> across the globe. HRW notes numerous procedural irregularities, signs of bias, and violations of standard civil rights in the trial. The report concludes that the main problem was that Iraq lacked the "capacity to fairly and effectively try these massive crimes in a manner that is consistent with international criminal law and fair trial standards." HRW's report is presented as an impartial analysis of the trial, but one should not be fooled. The report is an incredibly self-serving, political document that puts the interests of international human rights organizations and international lawyers first, and Iraqi political needs second. At one level, the document is the newest entry in a wide-ranging series of publications by organizations and individuals trying to distance them from the general Iraqi debacle in which they are implicated. Human Rights Watch and other human rights groups did a great deal to foster the prewar climate in which it was only possible to think of Hussein as a genocidal tyrant who needed to be overthrown, nevermind all the troublesome political issues involved with violating another country's sovereignty, smashing its state, and being an unwelcome presence to those people supposedly being liberated. And ever since Bush started leaning more heavily on humanitarian justifications for the war, and reminded the public of the connection between the Iraq war and prior humanitarian interventions, the human rights community, such as it is, has been in a small scale crisis of legitimacy. Developing a human rights critique of various aspects of the invasion and occupation has been a way of trying to salvage the international human rights project from this morass. For the liberals who run these organizations, these moves have been a way of preserving the idea that human rights contain some kind of (weakly) critical edge, rather than serve as imperial apologetics. Factually, the report is disingenuous. The various international trials relating to the former Yugoslavia and to Rwanda were also highly irregular. It was with a sigh of relief that the <a style="font-family: times new roman;" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Criminal_Tribunal_for_the_former_Yugoslavia">International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia</a> saw Slobodan Milosevic die before his trial was completed. Not only had he run circles around a surprisingly incompetent prosecution, but he exposed just how <a style="font-family: times new roman;" href="http://www.globalpolicy.org/intljustice/tribunals/yugo/2005/1104fairness.htm">unfair and unequal his trial</a> was (including radical disparities in the resources available to prosecution and defense, attempts to speed up the trial, and dubious evidence, not to mention being tried in an ad hoc court established by the victors). And as an exercise in instituting the international rule of law, Milosevic's trial dragged on so long, most had forgotten about it and moved on. It utterly failed as a legitimating act, neither helping to recognize the public suffering caused by human rights abuses, nor establishing faith in the (international) rule of law - both claims widely made by human rights organizations. Many of the same advocates who are upset about Saddam Hussein's trial said little or nothing about irregularities in prior signature trials, and certainly did not do so as immediately and decisively as they have done with Hussein. More to the point, HRW's report criticizes Hussein's trial mainly as a way of attacking local justice, not the idea of highly politicized human rights trials. The report claims "that trials that meet international human rights standards of fairness will be more likely to ventilate and verify the historical facts at issue, contribute to the public recognition of the experiences of victims of different religious groups and ethnicities, and set a more stable foundation for democratic accountability after periods of conflict and/or repression." There is no evidence for any of this, but what they are really trying to say is that we can only trust international lawyers and human rights experts to handle dictators appropriately, not local populations. In fact, as we have noted before, the <a style="font-family: times new roman;" href="http://againstwot.com/2006/11/when-throne-is-chair.html">central problem with Saddam's trial</a> was not that it failed to conform with "international human rights standards" but that it was utterly removed from any kind of Iraqi political movement and democratic process. The trial, though held in Iraq, was outside of Iraqi control, and managed in a way to ensure that those actually repressed by Saddam were unable to hold him to account, perhaps using such accountability as part of a process whereby a new order was established. Indeed, the curfews imposed on various parts of Baghdad after the verdict was handed down demonstrates how little Iraqis were allowed to participate in holding their former oppressor to account. Removing Saddam's trial to some international court would only have exacerbated this political problem and further proved to Iraqis that their future is not under their control. Human Rights Watch knows this, and its guilty, narcissistic consciousness peeks through its own report. At one point it states, "The significance of the trials before the IHT is difficult to overstate. For the first time since the post-Second World War Nuremberg trials, almost the entire senior leadership cadre of a long-lived repressive government faces trial for gross human rights violations committed during their tenure. At stake is not only justice for hundreds of thousands of victims, but, as at Nuremberg, the historical record itself." The breathless excitement at the prospect of parading an "entire senior leadership" of a Third World country before an international tribunal is so evident that it's almost perverted. And the invocation of the 'historic record' makes clear that what HRW really cares about is not the future of a Iraqi democracy and justice, but the future of the human rights project itself. They are upset that the Iraqis 'botched it' because it is a setback for a rare opportunity, made possible by the American invasion, of instituting the authority and expertise of human rights lawyers and activists as the ultimate arbiters of all conflicts. (HRW seems to forget that Nuremberg was basically a failure - extremely legally flawed and wrapped up hastily once denazification was seen to destabilize Germany in the face of a resurgent postwar left and emerging Cold War tensions.) HRW's document is in no way an impartial analysis based on purely legal principles. The thrust of the document and its criticism is to suggest that only international experts and advocates are capable of dealing appropriately with former oppressors. It demonstrates no appreciation for the idea that the people themselves can and should, especially in times of extraordinary change, determine how to deal with the prior regime. A 'proper' international criminal tribunal would have only further exacerbated the political vaccuum and more deeply instituted the general idea that popular political processes are not to be trusted. What was wrong with Hussein's trial was not that Iraq lacked the capacity and expertise to deal appropriately with him, but that Iraqis were never given the chance in the first place. Editorshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05246379451234911273noreply@blogger.com